By Alain Portmann
Less seems more these days. Google AdWords became one of the largest online advertising platforms by restricting advertisers' copy to 95 (25 line 1, 35 lines 2 & 3) characters or less. Twitter has become the fastest growing media platform through a 140 characters-per-message limit. Twitter's internal valuation has reached a staggering $250 million.
Regardless of the hype behind Twitter, one its strengths is the speed at which it disseminates and shares information from the mundane to the highly relevant. Another strength is the simple but effective API that has driven the development of countless third-party apps including TweetDeck, Twitteriffic and Twhirl.
Twitter is nothing more than another attempt to blend real-time communication and search within a social media context. Before Twitter there was Jaiku a Nordic social networking, micro-blogging platform launched in February 2006. Jaiku was purchased by Google on October 9, 2007 and shortly after decommissioned.
There is certainly scope for this type of integration, yet there are those that seem to have forgotten lessons from a decade away -claiming Twitter is a threat to Google and Facebook, (after all Google's search index doesn't keep up with conversations as quickly as Twitter and its user base is growing exponentially). As we learned during the dot-com bust, the value of technology and a user base is not in its ability to become mainstream, but the ability to be monetized. Why? Simple - profitability drives sustainability, R&D and innovation.
Twitter has four options for a business model - advertising, subscription, research and application download.
Advertising. While Federated Media recently announced an advertising revenue share program on Twitter creating programs such as ExecTweets, a collection of tweets from Microsoft executives, advertising will not be well received by Twitter users unless they are really clever about they way they engage this audience - few companies have been able to do so.
The latest attempt to build an advertising model is in the launch of The Discovery Engine brings real-time Twitter search right into the home page sidebar. When a user conducts a search, the results appear there, too, popping up in the big white box instead of on a new page. Users can also track the hottest trends on Twitter at any given moment within the same space. Think of it as Google Alerts for Twitter, built right into the site. The problem is that most people may never even bother discover it. How often do users actually use the Twitter.com interface?
Subscription. While successfully deployed by a handful of community sites including LinkedIn (Personal Plus and Pro), it would be challenging to justify the cost to the average consumer. With established media outlets such as the New York Times and FT.com struggling to make the "pay to consume" model work, Twitter does not stand a chance.
Research. While Twitter could be used to monitor and track the conversation and word of mouth of its user base, it would not only end up competing in a space dominated by aggregation of word of mouth (Technorati, Brandwatch) and more importantly, end up killing the spontaneous and "information promiscuousness" of its user base.
Application Download. Probably the most promising model - based on idea of offering "power users" - mainly those in the PR industry - unique tools and applications at a cost. Yet, this model in itself cannibalizes the concept of equal access and influence, which is so important to social media.
At one point or another Twitter will have to choose between either remaining the Peter Pan of social media or stepping into the world of social media adulthood. The decision is likely to end up killing Twitter.
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Less seems more these days. Google AdWords became one of the largest online advertising platforms by restricting advertisers' copy to 95 (25 line 1, 35 lines 2 & 3) characters or less. Twitter has become the fastest growing media platform through a 140 characters-per-message limit. Twitter's internal valuation has reached a staggering $250 million.
Regardless of the hype behind Twitter, one its strengths is the speed at which it disseminates and shares information from the mundane to the highly relevant. Another strength is the simple but effective API that has driven the development of countless third-party apps including TweetDeck, Twitteriffic and Twhirl.
Twitter is nothing more than another attempt to blend real-time communication and search within a social media context. Before Twitter there was Jaiku a Nordic social networking, micro-blogging platform launched in February 2006. Jaiku was purchased by Google on October 9, 2007 and shortly after decommissioned.
There is certainly scope for this type of integration, yet there are those that seem to have forgotten lessons from a decade away -claiming Twitter is a threat to Google and Facebook, (after all Google's search index doesn't keep up with conversations as quickly as Twitter and its user base is growing exponentially). As we learned during the dot-com bust, the value of technology and a user base is not in its ability to become mainstream, but the ability to be monetized. Why? Simple - profitability drives sustainability, R&D and innovation.
Twitter has four options for a business model - advertising, subscription, research and application download.
Advertising. While Federated Media recently announced an advertising revenue share program on Twitter creating programs such as ExecTweets, a collection of tweets from Microsoft executives, advertising will not be well received by Twitter users unless they are really clever about they way they engage this audience - few companies have been able to do so.
The latest attempt to build an advertising model is in the launch of The Discovery Engine brings real-time Twitter search right into the home page sidebar. When a user conducts a search, the results appear there, too, popping up in the big white box instead of on a new page. Users can also track the hottest trends on Twitter at any given moment within the same space. Think of it as Google Alerts for Twitter, built right into the site. The problem is that most people may never even bother discover it. How often do users actually use the Twitter.com interface?
Subscription. While successfully deployed by a handful of community sites including LinkedIn (Personal Plus and Pro), it would be challenging to justify the cost to the average consumer. With established media outlets such as the New York Times and FT.com struggling to make the "pay to consume" model work, Twitter does not stand a chance.
Research. While Twitter could be used to monitor and track the conversation and word of mouth of its user base, it would not only end up competing in a space dominated by aggregation of word of mouth (Technorati, Brandwatch) and more importantly, end up killing the spontaneous and "information promiscuousness" of its user base.
Application Download. Probably the most promising model - based on idea of offering "power users" - mainly those in the PR industry - unique tools and applications at a cost. Yet, this model in itself cannibalizes the concept of equal access and influence, which is so important to social media.
At one point or another Twitter will have to choose between either remaining the Peter Pan of social media or stepping into the world of social media adulthood. The decision is likely to end up killing Twitter.
Read Also About Are You an Internet Geek?
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Read Also About What Are Some Benefits of Blogging?
Read Also About Blogging From A Commercial Perspective
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